I'm putting this down for now. I'm a little more than halfway through it and it's been a slog. I was expecting more. I'm sure I'll pick it up again eventually to finish it off...

An adaptation and retelling of Malory's Le morte d'Arthur. ( )

This is the second book of Peter Ackroyd's which is a telling in modern style of 2 old texts. I'm not sure that this was quite as successful. I read this and found that language was somewhat plain and repetitive. There was little in the way of artistic flourish. It goes through the knights of the round table stories that we're all somewhat familiar with, so there's little to learn.
What it has done is made me seek out Mallory's text, to see what the original was like. This feels like a poor imitation. ( )

Not so much a retelling of the Arthurian legends, more a new translation and abridgement. Ackroyd has taken Malory's text and retold it in the modern idiom, along the way removing much of the contradictions and superfluous descriptions of battles that clog up the original text. However by doing so he has lost some of the poetry of the language. To be honest the first part of the book is a bit of a slog and it is only when the Quest for the Grail begins that things take off we are carried along to the inevitable doomed conclusion to the story. Much of it reads like notes for a fuller retelling of the legends, or a simplified version for 'young adults'. This is not to detract from Ackroyd's achievement; he is to be applauded for keeping the legends alive and if people go on to tackle Malory's original text that can only be a good thing. Personally I prefer my Arthurian reading to be a bit fuller and I'd recommend Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalaon (but not the sequel/prequels) and T.H. White's The Once and Future King to those who seek a reinterpretation of these classic doomed romances. ( )

This was a fantastic retelling of these immense tales of old. I was captivated by the characters and their motivations, but, at the same time, there are so many contradictions in how these knights of the Round Table broke their oaths time and time again — all the while they were held high as more than mere humans. This a fine retelling of this collection of stories about honorable men interacting in a brutal and complicated world. Maybe it all comes down to the fact that little is as simple and pure as some would want you to think. ( )